Throughout history, live sporting events have provided entertainment to the masses. For thousands of years, the only way for a person to view and experience a live sporting event was to physically attend the event. With the advent of radio and television, it was possible to view the event live without being physically located at the event. As information technology has developed, new ways of presenting coverage of a live sporting event are possible.
In recent years, a new generation of portable electronic devices has been developed for receiving and presenting remote media content. For example, a personal digital assistant (PDA) or a portable computer (e.g., a laptop computer) may be configured to present streaming audio and/or video content. Often, due to their portability, these electronic devices receive the media content over a wireless connection. It has been proposed to provide media coverage of a live sporting event over a wireless connection to an electronic device.
For large scale sporting events, such as the Olympic games or a major league baseball game, it is reasonable to assume that a large number of high-resolution video feeds will be available to remote devices. Unfortunately, there are a number of problems associated with transmitting video to remote devices. For one, the bandwidth available to transmit video by a wireless connection to remote devices is limited. When a large number of users are receiving video content wirelessly, there may not be enough bandwidth to provide a full or high resolution image.
Furthermore, power consumption of an electronic device presenting streaming media is greater for a high resolution image (e.g., a high bandwidth signal) than for a low resolution image (e.g., a low bandwidth signal). Also, an electronic device having a small screen may not be able to present a full or high resolution image. As such, the extra bandwidth used to provide the high resolution image is wasted.